Propulsion Technician (Starship)
Location
Hawthorne, CA
Wage
$23 – $38/hr
Employment Type
Full-time
Posted on September 8, 2026
Location
Hawthorne, CA
Wage
$23 – $38/hr
Employment Type
Full-time
Posted on September 8, 2026
SpaceX is developing technologies to enable human life on Mars, and the Propulsion Technician (Starship) role involves building and testing propulsion assemblies for maximum reliability in extreme environments.
At roughly $31/hr, this posting comes in about 15% below the $36/hr median for welding jobs in Hawthorne, CA, where the middle half runs $31–$58/hr across 40 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 5% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. That gap is worth raising directly — in a market this size there is normally room to negotiate toward the median, particularly if you already hold the certifications the posting asks for.
We're tracking 40 other active welding openings in Hawthorne, CA right now, from 6 different employers. 18 of them were added in the last week. Across California as a whole we're tracking 650 other active welding openings from 315 employers. A metro this active generally means you have real leverage — employers here are competing for the same welders. Browse every welding job in Hawthorne, or widen the search to California.
SpaceX currently has 33 other openings live in California, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.
The most active employers in California at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are SpaceX (33), Honeywell Aerospace (16), and Aerotek (13). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.
Within California, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Santa Ana at $53/hr, Redondo Beach at $51/hr, and Long Beach at $42/hr. If you can relocate or commute, that spread is worth factoring in.
Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Propulsion Technician (Starship) figures were last recalculated when this page was built.